Ouch! Hot Chip!

As part of their five year anniversary FakeLoveMusic brings British electronic music geek band Hot Chip to Arkham for their new Electric City events series that will also see CSS coming to Shanghai later this month.

Hot Chip have been regulars on the European festival scene since their formation back in 2000. They've also managed to release five studio albums during that time including the somewhat amazing 'Made In The Dark' which includes the track that made their name for many,'Ready For The Floor'

We reached out to Al, who'll be joined by Felix in the DJ booth at Arkham next week...

Where do your music and remixes sit on the electronic music - pop spectrum would you say?

If the spectrum includes electronic music at one end and pop at the other, then I'd say nearly all of our music covers it all, and could very easily be described as "electronic pop music", although increasingly we are finding more satisfaction in playing our acoustic instruments as if they were electronic instruments.

How would you describe your musical background? How did you get into making music and where do you draw inspiration from these days - on the forthcoming Hot Chip LP for example?

I was a classically trained cellist originally, and then over the years taught myself guitar which is still my main instrument I guess, plus percussion, and a few other instruments to a modest level. Inspiration comes from dreams, from literature, from each other as we make music in both Hot Chip and New Build. The new Hot Chip LP isn't complete enough to be able to say confidently what the main inspirations are; we're constantly trying to be forward-thinking but seem always to end up writing songs that evoke past eras of pop music.

What can we expect from the new record?

Expect to find a warm welcome in the interior landscape of our minds; music designed to let you joyfully make a fool of yourself.

You've put out many records and been remixed extensively - which of these are you most happy with and why?*

Personally I'm happiest with the "King of the Mountains" remix Felix and I did for Kraftwerk - a song called "La Forme". Florian from Kraftwerk sent an email to say he thought it was "excellent" and that made me very happy indeed.

Has the music you produced developed in response to the way your previous records have been received and the touring you've done?

Yes it has. We have increasingly tried to capture the feel of the live band when we are recording, and I think this new album will be the closest we've got to achieving that goal. As for critical and popular responses to the records, we take it on board but don't think about it that much; music made according to a focus-group tends not to be very interesting.

How do your DJing styles differ and what are some of the tracks that you're really enjoying playing out at the moment?

I guess Felix and I play a bit more strictly house and techno, and Joe and Alexis tend to be slightly more varied, but actually that's not really true anymore; we all mix it up according to where and when we're playing. We don't have any playlists and just react to what each of us puts on, which can make for quite a fragmented set, but a fun one. See below for some tracks I'm enjoying currently.